DETROIT — The St. Louis Cardinals never figured out Kenny Rogers, not the smudge on his pitching hand, not the baseballs he was throwing.

Virtually untouchable this October, Rogers smothered the Cardinals on two hits over eight shutout innings, leading Detroit to a 3-1 victory on a chilly Sunday night that tied the World Series at one game apiece.

Was it dirt on his palm in the first inning? A smudge from a resin bag? A magic elixir?

"Somebody said they thought they saw pine tar on him. That's about it," the Cardinals' Aaron Miles said. "Whether he got rid of it, or he never had it in the first place, we don't know. His stuff was good all game."

Umpires and Cardinals manager Tony La Russa had a brief discussion at the end of the first inning.

"It was a big clump of dirt, and I wiped it off," Rogers said. "I didn't know it was there, and they told me and I took it off, and it wasn't a big deal."

Maybe not to him. But certainly to most others.

"It's not important to talk about," La Russa said tersely to reporters.

But according to Tigers manager Jim Leyland — La Russa's good buddy — La Russa discussed it with the umps.

"I know Tony said, 'Hey, I don't want to make any issue here, but a couple of my players are saying that the ball is acting a little funny,"' Leyland said. "And obviously they were a little suspicious."

Leyland, who talked to three umps near the third-base line in the middle of the second, joked about the fuss.

"He was pretty clean the rest of the way," Leyland said.

Steve Palermo, one of baseball's umpire supervisors, said plate ump Alfonso Marquez noticed the dirt and asked Rogers to clean up. Palermo brushed off thoughts of any nefarious plot.

"Dirt is not a foreign substance," Palermo said. "That's what we play on. That's the playing surface."

Rogers extended his scoreless streak to 23 postseason innings this year and 24 1-3 postseason innings overall, a streak that began in 2003 with Minnesota. It is the longest streak since Curt Schilling tossed 25 scoreless innings in 1993 and 2001.

Rogers became only the second pitcher to have three scoreless starts in a single postseason. Christy Mathewson had three complete-game shutouts (27 innings) for the Philadelphia Athletics in the 1905 World Series.